Well, we don’t know because it hasn’t been, and almost can’t be, studied. So it’s either three or four or eight times higher—the suicide rate for gay kids versus straight kids.
Correction—there have been studies; that’s where I get these pretty far apart statistics. But it’s hard to say. A sensitive, sweet kid gets bullied, doesn’t have anyone to talk to, feels alone and helpless. He takes Dad’s shotgun and blasts the back of his head away. OK—was he gay? Or a sensitive, sweet, straight kid?
The death certificate will have his age, parents’ names, cause and date of death. But the sexual orientation? Even if known, it won’t be there.
So it’s a fuzzy area. “The Suicide Prevention Resource Center,” says Wikipedia, “synthesized these studies and estimated that between 30 and 40% of LGBT youth, depending on age and sex groups, have attempted suicide.”
That’s a shocking figure, if true. And I wonder, is it easier for gay kids now than it was in my youth, forty years ago? Then, the topic of homosexuality was almost as off the map as it was in Victorian times. It was taboo, it wasn’t discussed, it was unseen and invisible. In a sense, it was easier to pass.
Though it’s just occurred to me—the word “fag” was very frequently in and out of the mouths of a lot of my classmates. Was it directed at me? I think not. But the message was clear—keep your wrists ramrod tight, don’t move your ass, books get carried at the hip, not the chest. Pass, and try not to think about it.
Because thinking about it lead to dread. My worst fear, in those days, was of my wedding day since—as we all were then—I was on a societal conveyer belt. I would graduate from college, find a nice girl, and marry. And I knew that the morning I woke up and faced having to get married would be the worst day of my life. How would I get through it, or more—would I get through it?
Today, I think it’s harder for gay kids. In high school, I was just a nerd, a cellist, not a jock but not gay. You know, just weird. Today, I think kids are more aware, if not any less cruel. There’s gay everywhere….
Well, I’m thinking all this because of Josué, a killer flutist and sensitive, insightful man. Whom I met when he was still driving around with a Bible in the back of his car—his parents were deeply religious and it would kill them, he assured me, if they knew. Don’t know if they ever did know, or to what extent they accepted, but he’s gone on, moved on, done well professionally and personally. And he’s speaking out, which I totally like, on Facebook.
It gives me no pleasure to announce that a Tennessee state senator—a guy by the name of Stacey Campfield (I’m tempted to note that that “Stacey” is just a bit, well, faggy, but I won’t. Anything to shore up the high moral ground!)
OK—where was I? Right, this guy—who claims that AIDS originated when one guy screwed a monkey (sorry about these digressions, but who could resist?)
Try again, Marc. State senator Stacey Campfield has proposed legislation that would require school officials to notify parents of any child who has identified him or herself as gay. Oh, or even questioned.
(Whew—third time’s the lucky one!)
Yeah?
Marc—“I think I might be gay…”
School nurse reaches for the phone.
Nurse—“Mrs. Newhouse?”
OK—what’s the rationale? Homosexuality is dangerous to a person, says Campfield. Implicit is the belief that, gotten in time, nipped in the bud, and treated with that expert technique of conversion / reversion / inquisition therapy, that young life might still be saved!
Those, of course, would be the caring parents. The uncaring parents?
Well, the ACLU article that Josué posted mentions several facts. Forty percent of homeless LGBT youths have been kicked out of their homes by their parents.
Something I feared, actually. Don’t think it would have happened, but it would have seared Jack’s heart. Look, who he ended up being wasn’t where he started—is it ever? When John lived “in sin” with Jeanne a year before their marriage, Jack’s world fell down. It was nothing religious. It was just that Jeanne “had no self-respect”—could any woman do such a thing and have?—and that wasn’t the woman for John. Franny found Jack crying one day at the bottom of the basement stairs. “I used to put a mattress down here when he was a baby so if Johnny fell, well, it would cushion the fall. But now there’s nothing I can do to protect him….”
The possibility of exposure, the fear of the police coming through the front door of the Pirate Ship—an old bar where the Overture Center now is—as you squiggled out the bathroom window…all of that is still going on for a lot of kids.
Two of whom, says the ACLU, were picked up by police when they were found in a car with condoms and beer. So the cops dragged them in for underage drinking, and chose to do a little corrective therapy by lecturing on the Bible. Oh, and telling the kids that they’d better go right home and fess up to their parents.
Remember the start of this post?
Right—one of the kids, Marcus Wayman, had another idea. He got the keys to his dad’s gun cabinet (and don’t get me started…) and blew his brains onto the wall behind him.
Well, the mom took the cops to court—good for her—and got a settlement for 100,000 bucks. So now we know the price of a gay youth! The ACLU says:
If even one LGBT teen in Tennessee dies as result of this shortsighted, mean-spirited, and quite possibly unconstitutional bill, his or her blood will be on Stacey Campfield’s hands.
Totally agree. In the study adduced by the ACLU, 46% of homeless LGBT run away because of family rejection and 43% are forced out because of family rejection. On the streets, these kids are vulnerable to everything from prostitution to AIDS to suicide.
For many of us, families are the cradle for violence and abuse. It’s the first law of family dynamics: somebody always gets hurt.
